


Bugs in the Yard

by lionheartedghost



Series: Evan Buckley Week 2020 [7]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Cute, Fluff, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheartedghost/pseuds/lionheartedghost
Summary: “Evan Buckley, you’d better not be encouraging them to pick up bugs they find in the dirt!”Buck grinned sheepishly across the yard at Hen. “It’s educational!”Buck teaches the kids about bugs. Hen is not impressed.Written for Evan Buckley Week, Day 7: Free choice.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley
Series: Evan Buckley Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675246
Comments: 12
Kudos: 195





	Bugs in the Yard

**Author's Note:**

> So weeks (or months?) ago I saw some tumblr posts pointing out how Buck is super interested in bugs and I’ve been thinking about writing something about it for a while. I tried to find those posts again today and couldn’t find them anywhere, but thank you to the people who pointed it out in the first place! Whoever you are, I hope you see this and I hope you like it! Feel free to let me know who you are and I’m happy to tag you!
> 
> Written for Evan Buckley Week, Day 7: Free Choice.
> 
> Also posted on Tumblr.

“So you see this guy?” Buck crouched down and scooped the caterpillar into the palm of his hand. “He’s called a Monarch.”  
  
Denny leaned in close, the tip of his nose almost brushing the caterpillar as he studied it. “Why is he stripy?”  
  
“He’s stripy because he’s poisonous. The bright colours are how he tells all the predators to back off. Cool, right?”  
  
Christopher frowned. “Is he poisonous to us?”  
  
“Nah, only if you eat him.”  
  
“So, we don’t eat stripy caterpillars.” Denny nodded solemnly.  
  
Harry stared at him in disbelief. “I don’t think we’re supposed to eat any caterpillars.”  
  
“Actually,” Buck shuffled the caterpillar onto his other hand as it started to crawl, “in some parts of the world-”  
  
“Evan Buckley, you’d better not be encouraging them to pick up bugs they find in the dirt!”  
  
Buck grinned sheepishly across the yard at Hen. “It’s educational!”  
  
“I’ll murder you.” She pointed a warning finger in his direction. “Don’t think I won’t.”  
  
“She won't,” Buck whispered to the boys. “But maybe do me a favour and just look at the bugs from a distance. You know, so I don’t get into trouble.”  
  
“But can I hold this one?” Denny asked, his eyes hopeful. “Please? Just for a second?”  
  
Buck glanced over his shoulder. From the crowded table on the terrace, Hen still had her eyes firmly on them. Eddie looked like he was biting back a smile. Maddie, chin resting in her palm, whispered something to Chimney; Chim laughed.  
  
“Sorry, buddy.” Buck made a show of tipping the caterpillar back onto the leaf he’d found him on. “Probably shouldn’t. Germs and whatever.”  
  
“You mean you’re scared of my mom.”  
  
“Maybe a little bit.”  
  
Once she was satisfied she’d been listened to, Hen finally let herself rejoin the conversation at the table.  
  
“You know, ‘Evan, please stop picking up bugs’ was like my third most-used phrase twenty years ago.” Maddie picked up her glass of wine and took a sip. “He had a book. He liked to compare them to the pictures.”  
  
Athena reached for the bottle to top up her glass, pouring extra into Maddie’s before setting it down again. “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”  
  
“It’s kind of adorable, though.” Karen smiled, watching as Buck knelt in the grass to point out his latest discovery.  
  
“You won’t think that when it’s Denny bringing in worms and spiders and all sorts of things with a creepy amount of legs.” Hen grimaced.  
  
“Creepy crawly amount of legs,” Chim said. Hen elbowed him.  
  
“If that was the third most-used phrase,” Eddie said, watching as Christopher peered down to marvel at a ladybug, “what were one and two?”  
  
“‘Evan, please be careful’,” Maddie said with a tired laugh. “Closely followed by ‘Evan, please don’t jump off that’.”  
  
“So literally nothing’s changed, then,” Hen snorted.  
  
“What hasn’t changed?” Bobby set a stack of plates down in the middle of the table and laid them out, one carefully placed in front of each seat.  
  
“Buck hasn’t changed,” Chim said, reaching over to help lay out the cutlery.  
  
“Are you guys talking about me?” Buck paused behind the empty chair next to Eddie, casting a suspicious eye over each of them.  
  
“Yes,” Maddie replied without hesitation. “I’m reliving the trauma of every time I ever babysat you.”  
  
“What trauma?” Buck asked. “I was polite. I ate my vegetables. And I only jumped off the back wall, like, twice.”  
  
Maddie stared at him. Buck grinned innocently back.  
  
“Seeing as they all follow you around like you’re the pied piper,” Athena nodded towards the boys, who were still diligently searching through the leaves of the plants around the edge of the yard for more bugs, “would you please convince them to go inside and wash their hands before dinner?”  
  
“And wash your own hands while you’re there,” Hen added. “You know, so you don’t die from picking up that poisonous bug.”  
  
“They’re actually only poisonous on the inside,” Buck started. “They eat these leaves-”  
  
Hen raised her eyebrows; Buck trailed off.  
  
“Guys,” he called instead, “come on. Boss says you’ve gotta wash your hands before dinner.”  
  
They followed him inside without complaint.  
  
“That boy,” Athena said, slowly, “is an enigma.”  
  
“Mm.” Hen drained her glass. “That’s one word for it.”  
  
“You love him really,” Karen teased. “You know you do.”  
  
Hen rolled her eyes, a fond smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Somebody pass me the wine. If he’s gonna talk about bugs all through dinner, I’m gonna need a top-up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, I would be so so grateful for kudos and especially grateful for comments!
> 
> You can find me over on Tumblr [here](http://lionheartedghost.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Stay safe and well, everyone!


End file.
